Episode 7: Happy Halloween! A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

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Happy Halloween! Spooky Month concludes with a classic involving strange powers, mysterious girls, Victorian social mores and ancient goddess cults. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray gives readers a chilly horror fantasy set in a boarding school, answering the question, what if you gave teenage girls phenomenal cosmic power?

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A Great and Terrible Beauty:  Goodreads, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound

Libba Bray: Website

Content Note:

This book is written from the point of view of a white English girl from 1895, and subsequently she is a pretty terrible person when it comes to India, the lower class, and especially Romani/Traveller folks. The story also touches on emotional and physical abuse, bullying, self-injury, drug use, alcohol use, ableism and suicide. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. (CC Marie Macula, Carey Farrell 2017) 

Episode 6: There's Always Time for Chocolate Cake: The Curse of the Blue Figurine by John Bellairs

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Carey and Marie talk about a classic of middle-grade horror, The Curse of the Blue Figure by John Bellairs. The latest installment of Spooky Month involves Egyptian magic, evil priests, and chocolate cake. Will the ghost trains finally take Cohost Rie away? What, exactly, was Carey doing involving arcane rituals with a hoard of musicians? And where does Catholic mysticism fit in? Find out in this episode!

The Curse of the Blue Figurine (A Johnny Dixon Mystery #1) by John Bellairs: Goodreads, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound

John Bellairs: Website

Content Warning: Gaslighting, medical drugging, various emotionally and physically threatening things happening to pre-teen Johnny via villain, discussion of Catholicism and Satanic ritual

Show Notes:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.  (CC Marie Macula, Carey Farrell 2017) 

Episode 5: It's Always the Redhead: Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan

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The third episode of Spooky Month! Carey and Marie read Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan and never sleep again. Ghosts, possessions, boarding schools, neglected teenagers and mysterious (terrible) boys?  A perfect Halloween read! And a perfect income stream if done consensually!

Content Warnings: Possession, Neglectful/Abusive Parents, Boys with Bad Boundaries, 70s ideas about mental health and loss of it

Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan:  Goodreads, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound

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Readalikes:

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Tell Us Your Secret by Barbara Cohen

Current Reads:

As I Descended by Robin Talley

I Hate Everyone but You by Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin

Bad With Money by Gaby Dunn

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.  (CC Marie Macula, Carey Farrell 2017) 

Episode 4: The Thing in the Chicken House: The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissack

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Carey and Marie discuss the classic collection of African American  supernatural tales, The Dark-Thirty by Patricia McKissack. Chicken coop monsters and wise, loving Bigfoots, the horrors of slavery and oppression, and the inspiration for a lifetime studying folklore--all in one book! We share some ghost stories from our childhood and hometowns, and share readalikes and what we're currently reading to follow up on this amazing, award-winning book.  In this episode, the 11:59 comes for us all. 

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The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissack: Goodreads, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Indiebound

Patricia McKissack: Website

Brian Pinkney: Website

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Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves

The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste

Motherwit: An Alabama Midwife's Story by Onnie Lee Logan as told to Katherine Clark

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.  (CC Marie Macula, Carey Farrell 2017)